Magpies on the move

Senior AFL writer for The Age

Nathan Buckley holds a training session for the team in Utah. Photo: Collingwood Football Club

FOR eight years now, Collingwood has conducted an overseas pre-season training camp at high altitude. One was in South Africa, half-a-dozen in Flagstaff, Arizona. But this time, the Magpies changed their US ''second home'' to Utah, where rival North Melbourne has been based for three years.

An unspoken dipping of the lid to the Roos, perhaps? Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley good-naturedly shoots that one down.

''Mate, we're pioneers of the whole thing. We don't need to be following people,'' he jests.

Well, sort of jests. Because in a big-picture sense, Buckley knows that after at least a couple of years of setting the AFL standard, Collingwood, however marginally, has slipped just a little in the pecking order.

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This camp has been all about making up that ground.

''I reckon the perception about next year from outside here could have us anywhere from first to eighth, maybe even lower,'' he says.

''It's not my job to speculate on that, but I've got no doubt there would be question marks about what we're capable of, and that there's a few other sides that quite rightly would now be held in higher esteem after the last 18 months, so we've got some ground to make up.

''I don't feel like we're league leaders any more, we're not the benchmark. So we're definitely aiming to challenge the existing benchmark sides and perform better against them than we did in the last season-and-a-bit.''

The 16-day camp in Utah was the start of that process. Flagstaff had been a proven winner for the Magpies, but had also become very familiar.

This, says Buckley, was about ''freshening the group up a little bit''.

''There's something different to explore, like a new city, a new area. There's a little bit of risk with that, but I think we've probably got a 3 or 4 per cent spike from having a new venue, and probably another 3 or 4 per cent with some of the venues we've been able to secure and use here, so I think it's been pretty positive.''

Collingwood reorganised the timing of its pre-season program, giving its players the bulk of their required leave up front before the camp. On this venture, there's been better accommodation, plenty of use made of the facilities at the University of Utah and more chance to, as the coach puts it, ''drip feed'' into confined game situations the work the Magpies have been doing on two focus areas, transition and contested ball.

''Every destination has its different nuances, but we couldn't be happier with making the change. It just feels like it's freshened the group up. And we want to find another couple of per cent in every area of our preparation, that's with the camp, our contested footy, our fitness, our weight program,'' he says.

''You're always looking to be better, and sometimes if you hold on to what you've got, you miss out on the opportunity to improve.''

That's a maxim that could logically be applied to Collingwood on the field as well in Buckley's first year in charge after taking over from Mick Malthouse.

The master's coaching apprentice refined rather than remade Malthouse's Collingwood model. The judgment on the results of that tinkering depends on whether you're naturally inclined to a glass half-full or empty view of the world.

It's an assessment complicated also by the constant injury curse that hovered over the Pies most of the season, seldom allowing their star contingent to even play, let alone perform to their capacity, as a group.

Few teams can have won 10 consecutive games, as did Collingwood in 2012, and still give the impression it was somewhat below its best.

The upside was that many of those victories came with the injuries mounting, the Pies still able to eke out the wins and blood and develop further the likes of Ben Sinclair, Jamie Elliott, Paul Seedsman, Jackson Paine and Luke Rounds.

The bottom line, however, a finish of fourth with 16 wins, four fewer than in 2011, was clearly a drop-off. The manic defensive and tackling pressure that was the trademark of Collingwood's 2010-11, particularly in its forward half, fell away, as did the Pies' capacity to win the contested ball.

''You still have to win that contested ball in a phone box, and we've got some very good contested-ball players, but I thought at times last year we were nutted in that area,'' Buckley says.

''When we won the contested ball we won footy games, and when we lost it, we lost them, so it continues to be a really strong indicator.

''We need to be able to put pressure on the ball constantly, and with a big pre-season and a better fitness base and with a focus on controlling the ball, we're going to be able to put more pressure on.

''Sides are getting pretty good at controlling the tempo and getting out of their back half, and we need to be able to match that.''

The biggest change to the game last year, says Buckley, and evident not only in both grand finalists Sydney and Hawthorn, but the likes of Adelaide and West Coast, was about the best teams finding the right balance of inside ability with outside run.

The next likely shifts will come as a consequence of a cap on interchange numbers, to be trialled in February's NAB Cup, but almost certain to be introduced for the premiership season in 2014. That will place an even greater premium on the quality and speed of ball movement, and to that end, Buckley's Pies have attempted to get ahead of the curve.

That transition, as has been clear from the work done at the Utah camp, will be a key to Collingwood's 2013, underlined in the recruiting during the trade period of a trio of penetrating kicks of the football, former Eagle Quinten Lynch, former Hawk Clinton Young, and former Blue Jordan Russell.

''We feel like we've been a little shy on players who can run the lines and maintain their width, and who can cover distance with run then penetrate by foot,'' Buckley says.

''Nearly every one of the players we've brought in has real penetration in their kicking. I felt we had lost the ability to penetrate, we sort of relied so much on turning the ball over in the front half that we actually lost a lot of penetration rebounding out of our back half.

''Leon Davis going had an influence on that, and Heath Shaw being held had an influence, so Young and Lynch and Russell help that, and even the younger draftees have got a bit of pep on their kicks, too, so it's definitely been a focus, we've been able to recruit that, and we're in the process of training it as well.''

Lynch, in particular, will be pivotal, as a key forward replacement for the departed Chris Dawes, and as effective ruck support for No. 1 man Darren Jolly, something the Magpies have lacked since the retirement of Leigh Brown. But Buckley chuckles at the mention of the ''Leigh Brown-type role''.

''If people think you need to match the structure you had in 2010 to be successful in 2013, that's so far off track it's not funny,'' he says.

All types of forward and on-ball structures are possible, ''dependent upon where we think we can take advantage of the opposition defensively, but also a product of the time of the season and how effective we are with our ball-movement patterns''.

Buckley doesn't discount potential input from up-and-coming ruckmen Jarrod Witts or the Pies' first pick in the national draft, Sturt youngster Brodie Grundy, either, recalling the 2010 campaign when a number of players who hadn't been considered part of the best 22 at the beginning of the year ended up with a premiership medal by season's end.

The now only new-ish Collingwood coach, famously demanding of himself, was always going to mark his own first year in the job harshly, but fear of not reaching goals is never going to prevent him setting his own lofty targets.

''I suppose one thing I did find out was when you do have those high expectations that you get disappointed more often than not,'' he says. ''I shake my head at times when I hear leaders in organisations try to manage expectations. I can understand there's a bit of self-preservation in all of that. But I wasn't and won't be afraid to talk up the possibilities and capabilities of our club and our program and players.''

Buckley the coach knows in one sense he's not a lot different to Buckley the former champion player, one area needing constant attention being his ''ability to smell the roses''. ''I feel like I lead best when the shit hits the fan,'' he says.

But show him a first-year AFL coach who has managed to strike the perfect balance of work and personal life and he'd be ''amazed if they actually had the personality required to be able to sink their teeth into the role and get it done''. ''I really try to find avenues to switch off entirely, but it's easier said than done.

''I got better at it as the year went on, I'm a lot more understanding now of the requirement for balance, and I look forward to being a better coach because of that.

''Once the dust settles, you realise how much you invest and how important it's going to be in the long term to be able to take in those deep breaths and maintain a balance throughout the length of the season.''

Buckley happily concedes others close to him, such as wife Tania, see the bigger picture better than he.

''She's been fantastic. She's worked herself up with anticipation of what was going to come and was probably a bit surprised … she probably feels I've got a better balance than what I feel I have, but I still think there's more to go. You're always learning,'' he laughs.

As ever, Buckley is trying to improve that extra couple of per cent. Be it on the home front, be it drilling the Collingwood troops in thick snow and freezing cold on the other side of the world, or be it just planning the business of getting an entire football club back at the head of the pack where it genuinely believes it belongs.